‘Bread and Butter’ go together, everybody knows that. And so too do List Building and Internet Marketing.

You can’t have one without the other. You can’t separate the two. They belong together, and together they are the sustaining force in an Internet Marketers business.

List building is the first, most important and most consistent of all the tasks that Internet Marketers must take care of. Their lists are their bread and butter, and their lists and their businesses sink or swim together. Neither can exist without the other.

Though strangely enough, even a brief journey around the Internet will reveal individuals claiming that list building isn’t important, that it isn’t necessary, and that you can have a perfectly successful business without a list.

I just have one thing to say to those people – poppycock.

Don’t you believe one word of that bulldust, because that is exactly what it is – bulldust!

Seriously, that is without a doubt the worst advice I’ve ever heard anyone offer on the subject of Internet Marketing. And it cost me personally dearly, – more in terms of time than money, but certainly there was some money involved. And a GREAT deal of frustration also. I listened to that advice, and a year down the track I was no further forward in my Internet Marketing.

It’s a fact, there is actually a whole load of average to useless Internet Marketing advice out there which could easily be harmful to your business if followed. But the notion of not building a list is just downright suicidal advice to follow.

You see, LIST BUILDING isn’t just important for the Internet Marketer… it is 100% VITAL. It is your bread and butter, and without it, you have no business.

SPAM

So you just add people to your list, and send them offers and stuff right?

No way! The CAN SPAM act of 2003 makes it illegal to send marketing emails without the consent of the recipients. It’s the law. And the penalties for non-conformists are tougher than for many crimes of physical violence . You can be fined up to US$11,000 per unsolicited marketing email that you send.

So you can clearly see that just one email would seriously deflate your bank balance. If you send hundreds, then quite simply, you’ll never get the fine paid off in just one lifetime.

So how do we get round this?

OPT IN LIST

Well we use a consent form called an OPT IN, and often a DOUBLE OPT IN List is used. A list of people who have agreed to receive our emails is what we want. These are our subscribers and we allocate a $$ amount to them, based on our income from them and how many of them there are. And the chances are that in time they will buy from us – if we treat them right.

Now, let’s talk about some ways that we can go about building our bread and butter opt-in list. Several ways have been proven to be very effective list building techniques. These techniques do work and are great ways for newcomers starting out, as they don’t cost anything.

ARTICLES

One way is to write articles and submit them to article magazines, or ezines. If you weren’t blessed with any special writing skills, or perhaps you just don’t have time, you can have articles written for you by ghost-writers. Alternatively, you can buy a PLR package and do what we call re-badging. This involves virtually taking the piece apart and giving it a new lease of life. But the basic ideas have been provided already, so you just need to re-write the content rather than come up with genuine content yourself. You can include a link to your site in your article’s resource box.

FORUM & BLOG POSTING

Another proven list building technique is to post to blogs and forums in your niche. If you do this, you have to be careful not to post blatant advertisements for your products or site. The suggestions need to be subliminal if you must place them in the content. A preferable way is just to concentrate on producing quality articles on these sites. Don’t give them garbage. It won’t get you anywhere, as people just won’t read it, let alone click to your site.

Take your time, hours even, and produce a truly worthy epic contribution that you can be proud of (a bit like this – lol).You can include a link to your site in your signature. If you find a forum that doesn’t allow signatures or links in them, then move on and find the next one that does.

EXCHANGE LINKS

Another great way to build your list is Exchanging Links with websites that offer products and services similar or complimentary to yours, but not identical.

Some marketers are not keen on this, thinking that you risk sending ‘your’ traffic to the other site. Well, that is possible for sure, but we did say this was a TWO WAY arrangement, and so some of their traffic may come to your site and buy too!

So you can see that a link exchange can bring traffic to your site that you may not ever have seen, and let’s face it – every person who visits your site is a potential customer. Or at the very least, will possibly join your bread and butter list.

PAID ADS

Then of course there is paid advertising to consider. Paid advertising usually generates a much more targeted response and the conversions will therefore be better than the free methods. It will also be MUCH FASTER. Seriously, – you could get as much traffic in an afternoon with a paid method as you’d get in a month or more doing it the free and slow way.
A PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign for example, is not free. But if you greatly increase your list size as a result, then it’s been money well spent. Do you get that? Because now you can go on to market to those new additions and if just one of them buys something, you’ll probably make up the cost of the ad. So don’t be afraid of using Paid Ads.

PPC campaigns are actually very effective tools for list building, – especially so if you can offer a freebie as an incentive. People do love ‘free’ stuff. Free reports, utilities or e-Books… all are fine. If it’s free, it will surely add more to your bread and butter opt-in list.

A really popular way to build your list using paid advertising is to advertise in your niche ezines. There are various types of ads you can place in these, but the most effective and most popular is the one we call a SOLO AD – you may have heard of these.

Ezine advertising is very targeted and has proven to be both effective and cost effective. The people who will see your ad are, by the very nature of the fact that they are reading this ezine, going to be people interested in what you have on offer.

The more savvy Internet Marketers fully understand how important list building is. It’s at the very top of their ‘to-do’ list every single day. Because they understand that their lists really are their bread and butter.

They totally get that without their lists, they have no business.

And you too should take this information aboard. Believe with all your heart in what I’ve said. Hear it, understand it, and act on it – because it’s true.

Thanks for reading my post. If you’ve liked what you’ve read, or have anything to add or suggest, – please I’d love for you to leave a comment below. I’ll reply in record time, I promise.